Government science investment frequently comes from fear. ARPA was the US government's big "give money to research" program. It was started in response to Sputn

Government science investment frequently comes from fear. ARPA was the US government's big "give money to research" program. It was started in response to Sputnik because we feared we were falling behind the Soviets. Then in 1969-73, Senate majority leader Mansfield decided that this research might be being misused to fund science in ways that wasn't directly useful to fighting Soviets, so ARPA became DARPA (the D is for Defense!) and now researchers needed to explain why their science might help build missiles.